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700,000 Android devices activated each day

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Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#51

Post by divtxt »

Android is taking off here in India because it's creeping into the low-end. I'm sure the same thing is happening in most countries.

Last week I got a Samsung Galaxy Y. It's small, sturdy, has swype input and has great battery life. Gmail, reader & facebook over 3G or wifi.

The price: just $140!!!

I used to try high-end phones and then go back to low-end Nokias. Now, I'm not going back to my $40 Nokia and I'm definitely not going to pay $700+ for an iPhone that won't even have Swype.

edit: extra sentence

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#52

Post by tluyben2 »

divtxt wrote: post #51

Android is taking off here in India because it's creeping into the low-end. I'm sure the same thing is happening in most countries. Last week I got a Samsung Galaxy Y. It's small, sturdy, has swype input and has great battery life. Gmail, reader & facebook over 3G or wifi. The price: just $140!!! I used to try high-end phones and then go back to low-end Nokias. Now, I'm not going back to my $40 Nokia and I'm definite…

A lot of people are buying, just for the hell of it, Androids from Chinese outlets like Aliexpress as well. Those are not brands, but they are really cheap; so cheap you don't care at all if they break/fall (I don't agree with that sentiment, but I know a lot of people do). There are Android 2.3 pads there for $50 (not to mention hackable Linux phone watches). Now if only you could upgrade Android without restrictions.

And, while there still is crisis everywhere, I see people selling them here on markets; they buy them from Alibaba in sets of 20-50 and sell them on a sunday market to 'fortunate but not as fortunate to pay for a $140 phone'.

Edit: added Linux phone watch, disclaimer; never tried one, but a friend did and he says it's great fun for tinkering.

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#53

Post by tintin »

rjd wrote: post #32

Does anyone else look at these numbers and instantly think of the shear volume of waste? With iphones thats a well over million per day. With most people already owning a phone thats a lot of superseded devices to deal with. Thats a lot of chemical waste...

This is exactly the reason why I keep my mobile as long as possible (years). It is a shame to see all the waste we ship to counties like Ghana and Nigeria and call it recycling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#54

Post by krashidov »

rjd wrote: post #32

Does anyone else look at these numbers and instantly think of the shear volume of waste? With iphones thats a well over million per day. With most people already owning a phone thats a lot of superseded devices to deal with. Thats a lot of chemical waste...

I've been thinking about this a lot recently and it seems like a big concern to me. Ideally, consumer products should last a person for more than a couple of years but with smartphones the product life is about two years.

I wonder how long we can go at this rate until our rare-earth minerals start reaching alarming levels.

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#55

Post by [deleted] »

dangrossman wrote: post #6
byoung2 wrote: post #2

I wonder what number of distinct users is. Once you go Android, you tend to stay there. Between my wife and me, for example, we have had 6 Android phones (1 HTC Hero, 2 HTC Evo 4Gs, 3 HTC Amaze 4Gs), and 5th Android tablet (2 Samsung Galaxy Tabs, 1 Asus Transformer, 1 Acer Iconia, and 1 T-Mobile G-Slate). I'm sure each activation was recorded, but there isn't really a way to deactivate a device. Even a factory reset…

If you own 11 Android devices, you're probably in the top 10% of earners in this country. Smartphones as a whole aren't near 50% of cell phones in the US; the plans are still prohibitively expensive. I think the case of a single person owning more than one Android device is a very rare one.

[deleted]

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#56

Post by ugh »

byoung2 wrote: post #2

I wonder what number of distinct users is. Once you go Android, you tend to stay there. Between my wife and me, for example, we have had 6 Android phones (1 HTC Hero, 2 HTC Evo 4Gs, 3 HTC Amaze 4Gs), and 5th Android tablet (2 Samsung Galaxy Tabs, 1 Asus Transformer, 1 Acer Iconia, and 1 T-Mobile G-Slate). I'm sure each activation was recorded, but there isn't really a way to deactivate a device. Even a factory reset…

It seems to me that Android would be the easiest to switch away from. Not so much for any technical reasons, rather because of the mindset most Android buyers (I know) have.

Android is the default choice if you don’t want an iPhone. It’s the default and generic smartphone. All people who have Android phones I know don’t care about the OS at all. They may like the phone (Look at my nice new Samsung smartphone! Isn’t this HTC phone cool?), they know nothing and don’t care one bit about the OS.

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#57

Post by thomasjoulin »

jlgosse wrote: post #10
paperwork wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once you go Android, you tend to stay there Interesting, I've heard the opposite. My brother knows several people who started out on Android, but switched to iphone. He ended up switching from learning to do Android apps to iPhone apps.

Going to have to say that I've had a much better experience with iOS than any other platform. In the past three years I have moved in the following sequence: - Windows Mobile (Motorola Q) - Various BlackBerry Devices (Curve, Storm, Torch, etc) - Android (Nexus One) - Windows Phone 7 (Samsung Focus) - Android (Nexus One, again) + iPad 2 - iOS (iPhone 4S) Having dabbled in J2ME, BlackBerry, Android and iPhone developme…

I develop for iOS and WP7, and I have high hopes for Windows Phone, but honestly, it's not quite there yet. And compared to iOS development, it is extremely frustrating.

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#58

Post by swombat »

rjd wrote: post #36
cryptoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the vast majority of these users are probably on their first smartphone. For example, Android is huge in African countries where families who've never owned a computer are starting to sign up for cheap 3G plans with cheap Android phones. I bet there's a lot of waste, but I also bet that it's nothing compared to the waste from old American cars driving around and polluting. Think of what these new cheap smartp…

I wasn't really referring to the 'carbon footprint' if thats why you brought cars into it. I was more referring to things like PCBs and batteries, and the chemical processes used in refining these things. Toxic and harmful chemicals appearing in ecosystems they shouldn't... when things like cell phones don't get reprocessed properly.

There are plenty of toxic chemicals in car manufacturing. Hell, cars (particularly old ones) produce these toxic chemicals continuously while you drive them! Smart phones are a hell of a lot less toxic than cars.

As for the comparative benefits, we could argue until the cows come home - both products are insanely useful and life-changing - but if we simply declared them equally useful, that would make phones a better bargain due to the much smaller amounts of toxicity.

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#59

Post by beernutz »

rimantas wrote: post #44
azakai wrote: post #15

It's remarkable the legal lengths to which Apple and Microsoft are going to try to stop Android, but it looks like they are having little or no effect. Lawyers get paid, some silly patents get worked around, but that's about it it seems.

> It's remarkable the legal lengths to which Apple and > Microsoft are going to try to stop Android, Microsoft is making money with each Android phone sold, so I am not so sure what legal lengths are you talking about.

Probably lengths like this:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/itc-initial-...

Re: 700,000 Android devices activated each day

#60

Post by buster »

pbreit wrote: post #39

I'm sure the number is accurate and kudos to Google but, wow, who the heck is activating all these devices? From the people I run into I would estimate the iOS:Android ratio at 10 or 20 to 1 (San Francisco).

In my team it's currently about even, but more and more switch over to Android. 1 year ago i was the only guy with an Android phone. Now it's even.
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